Month: November 2019

Are you foreign?

Are  you foreign  locals say to me
You have a funny accent, and you rhyme
So do you ever have a cup of tea?

Where do you come from, did you swim the  sea?
I see a kind of hatred in their eyes
Are  you foreign   locals say to me

Lord, forgive them,  what  can  these folk see?
I must look other, not the same as I
And do they ever use a cup  for tea?

All of us are blends of history
The Romans and the Vikings left  long lines
Are  you foreign.   locals  question  me?

I wonder  have I missed some little cue
To tell the truth, it’s rare for  me to lie
And even now I nurse a cup of tea?

I look odd but  so do all I  spy
What a nerve , they stole a whole pork pie
Are  you foreign  locals say to me
Be off ,I  cry, I’ll kill  for   privacy

 

 

Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

How we met is   not at all bizarre
Someone stole my bike.I had no car
I walked along the street and then met you
You had just come back from Timbuctoo

We never  found the bike. it had  a curse
But fortune favours courage and  good work
The joy was tempered by the  wrath of Mam
Not by   immigrants from Pakistan

Later on we  owned a  cheapo car
We went to Suffolk on some kind of dare
The houses painted pink ,soft white and green
By Framlingham which once housed Tudor Queen

We  soon learned   to love the South Folks lands
Yet deep inside ,the North  grips heart with  hand

A little death  to let the earth revive

A stillness falls across the garden trees
A little death  to let the earth revive
Stand silent here  and feel the gentle breeze

Yet some icy hands will sting like bees
To test our spirit, show we are alive
As stillness falls across the garden trees

Later in mid winter trees half freeze
Frost will hang like silver chains devised
Stand silent here  and feel the sharper breeze

As the year is ending  don’t retrieve
The bad ideas, the feelings  cruel  archived
As stillness falls across red maple trees

The sun so low  it blinds  us to our needs
We waste our time of peace with pointed jibes
Stand silent here  and feel the colder breeze

Winter rituals enrich starving lives
So cruel the cold,   yet frost with beauty chides
A stillness falls across the garden trees
Stand silent  fall and winter ,feel the breeze

 

 

What we women wear

beach bikini braided hair carefree
Photo by Vaibhav Kashyap on Pexels.com

Why are we still suffering for our appearance?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwire_bra

You may like your wife or partner to look like this but do you know what it feels like?[Though once or twice these wires have deflected bullets] never knew what underwires looked like until I accidentally bought a nice looking bra online.When I felt the wires I decided to remove them.I am really shocked to see how tough and strong these wires are.I imagine unless you were very thin [and would not need much of a bra] the wires would really cut into your flesh at the sides where it runs up the cup edge.The wires are so strong I am sure one could make a weapon from them.I showed one to a friend and he was horrified.But looking round Marks and Spencer that great British shop [!] most bras are underwired.
I can’t see how,if you have large breasts that these wires would hold them up.They’d just dig in and then the breast would hang over the edge.
With all the fear of breast cancer,why do we submit to the diktat that we must make our breasts stand up or out?
If we are that bothered then wearing a long waistcoat over a top or blouse would hide our bulging figures.
So either I return to modelling birds from wire [ I have done before] or else it’s the garbage can for these nightmare objects.I wonder who invented them?

When the underwire breaks through the bra fabric, it can cause tremendous discomfort. Celebrity chef, television personality, and businesswoman Clarissa Dickson Wright only wears a bra on special occasions. At her 50th birthday party, she was dancing when she suddenly felt a “terrifying pain in my chest.” She initially thought she was having a heart attack. “The pain got more and more intense. I staggered off and discovered I’d broken my underwired bra.”

Look into the sun and fire perceive

Whirling in the winter wind, dead leaves
Dry and brown and broken ever more
Send their substance to the souls bereaved

People pray and yet do not believe
Christ was born  and angels  him adored
On the winter wind float dying  leaves

By our spirits may we be deceived,
Even in the heart’s most hidden core,
Sharing   presence with all us bereaved?

Look into the sun and fire  perceive
Power  destroys the lives  of all its whores
On the wind float  lingering, burned out leaves

For men of power think they can  God deceive
Yet even kings will die despite their  force
To lie in marble graves,  of love bereaved

Wrapped in cloths of linen, cream and coarse
With no coffin, Jesus  high  is borne
With the wind, with ashes , with dead leaves,
The photons of his love  light  hearts bereaved

His music is the waves as they run high

The music of the waves as they run high
Across the pebbly sands  onto the road
Then groaning of the shingle as waves die

The fish that dwell deep in the dark, dark brine
The flow within as  outer waters flow
The music of the waves as they run high

The moon reflects  sun’s  light to  other eyes
Above the seas which rise up to its goad.
Then groans the shingle as the steep waves die

The sea holds hidden goods  where man can’t pry
In the deep the heavy water moulds
The music of the waves as they run high

All the day and all of the  black night
The seas and oceans change from high to low
Ah, groans the earth as each wave has to die

Re-hear these sounds, are they a sacred code?
As angels wrestled Jacob feared the Lord
His music is the waves as they run high
His groaning is the shingle as waves die

 

 

 

 

 

Across the bay I see the Langdale Pikes

Across the bay I see the Langdale Pikes
Their shapes like faces  staring   out our grief
With savage slopes, sheer cliffs, inhuman sights

When we climbed, the shadows   caused me fright
As if a godlike painter  filled his brief
Across the bay I see the Langdale Pikes

The sun was hot  and gave us help and light
The hills  were bare there was no falling leaf
From savage slopes, sheer cliffs, inhuman sights

From these slopes there is  no fight or flight
We may fall down, the terror now released
Across the bay I see the Langdale Pikes

We gain a small idea of God’s true might
Climbing high and higher brings relief
From savage slopes, sheer cliffs, inhuman sights

At the top  we  feel a moment’s peace
No longer on the scree  with tense gripped teeth
Across the bay I see the Langdale Pikes
With savage slopes and hollows , our bombsights

S T Coleridge’s angst

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Collage and drawings by Katherine

 

https://www.bachelorsdegreeonline.com/blog/2011/15-writers-with-lives-more-interesting-than-fiction/

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s life was beset by illnesses, opium dependency, marital problems, and a lack of confidence. He suffered from crippling anxiety and depression, which he increasingly treated with opium, which possibly led to his death of heart failure with an unknown lung disorder.

Lucian Freud

 

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/28_chart.html

The language your forefathers spoke
Dwells in your images.
Faces bleed with feeling.
Bodies rise out like rocks.
Your self portrait sings
Me,myself.I am.
As God spoke from the burning bush
You took the flame and ran

Kick it, scratch it, bite it, sip its dew

Choose a heap of words and make a form
The words may not be right but such is charm
Once you’ve made a heap of stones, of brick
You can shape it with your poetics

Treat it like a sculptress does her clay

Hit it, mould it, make it go your way

But, oh, beneath its hidden shape and show

The poem knows such life you’ll never know.

Get it in your arms and so you twist

A pile of soft cement with woman’s wrist

Kick it, scratch it, bite it, sip its dew

The poem is having its own way with you.

As we wrestle in our clay stained cloth

We feel the rising of our hidden wrath.

So at the end, we mould it with our souls

The poem itself has shaped the dual goal.

Thus master, mistress none can take the name.

For inner demons, gods have died in vain

Older and older,I’ll never leave you,but I will,no doubt, grieve you

Until the very end of time I’ll be loving you.

Until the end of all my rhymes,I’ll be writing you.

Until the day I die,I’ll be unintentionally annoying you.

Older and older,I’ll never leave you,but I will,no doubt, grieve you and

deceive you, misperceive you

and misconstrue my meter when I am writing for you and

I can’t stop to get the right rhythm

Otherwise I’ll think of you,wink at you and make a hypnotic link to you

For now,my fingers will be all over you..looking for fleas in your clothes, and

for for mice in your shoes.

I’ll be looking for tears in your eyes

and making you feel surprised.

Do you speak Estuary English?

You spun me a tale…..

Love your particular detail,like you are male.

You have small hands and feet.

And you can smile.

Love may fail

Though it has no examinations.

Or recriminations

So I’ll stop  showing  love to  you

And find something  wise to do without you

like making a Christmas Cake

Yes,I can bake

What do you hate?

 

 

They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Hypothermia made me write so well
The pen froze to my hand and would not leave
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Just in case my head should start to swell
I made myself a hat from dried brown leaves
Hypothermia made me write real well

The government is  giving us free bells
So they will ring whenever we’re deceived
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

Hell is very fiery but with gel
I can get it  clean   from all disease
Hypothermia made me write,oh very well

I tell a lie, the cold invades my cells
I can’t clean  yet a bottle in a breeze
They’ve offered me a job dry cleaning Hell

My husband is asthmatic, he can wheeze
He has  inhalers as his lungs will tease
Hypothermia made me write so well
They’ve offered me a  column, what the hell

 

 

 

 

The fishes swimming in your head

We humans seem concerned  that we must die
Yet complain we cannot sleep with shuttered eyes
Stay awake and let  the mind roam free
Invent new recipes, enjoy some tea

Feel the peace of darkness and  the bed
Tell off  fishes swimming in your head
Get up and clean the kitchen  of its grease
Check your records if you have a lease

Knit a mohair hat for winter time
Wash a scarf and hang it on the line
Change  the  printer ink  before it dries
Volunteer to work for M I 5

Unwillingly  admit we can’t control
The night and day,  the journey and its goal

The mind’s intentions, its mutating schemes

The entrance  opens to world of dreams
Impossible to   find out by our will
The mind’s intentions and its hidden schemes

Enlightened by  the    feel of  fey sunbeams
Knowing it is  stronger to sit still
The entrance  opens to the  deck of dreams

The eye grows wider. our vision   limpid leans
Until our  reverie has   got its fill 
The mind’s intentions and its wandering schemes

Warnings come in nightmares, how to heed?
The pain grows stronger like a workman’s drill
The pathway   leads to far more fearsome dreams

Are we  puppets strangling on our leads?
Who ‘s the master, who  must pay the bill,
Receive the mind’s intentions and its schemes?

High and low  let interact  and  tell
How we shall find our way  and what   to kill
The entrance  opens to world of dreams
The mind’s intentions, its mutating schemes

Paper knives

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Art by Katherine

If women’s eggs can be frozen,  can’t hens?
If paper can cut  the skin why not have paper knives ?
What about paper tissues?
Why is reading a book better than reading on a phone?
Why are   some pens called fountain?
Why are hedge-hogs unsuitable for a full English breakfast?
Why does France still have wild boars when we only have Royal bores?
Why  can’t I build a  new house in my neighbours large garden and make a drive for my car through their side entrance?
Why do some people  talk like robots?
Why do people feel life has no meaning ?
What could be a meaning for life?
Why do people read in bed?
Who forbade sex  outside Harwich ?
Why can I perceive  but not conceive?
Is it better to be deceived than to deceive?
Why did I forget to put  my hat on a stand?
Why is it called an overcoat?
Do we  really need Carmel’s underwear in winter?
I am pleased  but not guilty  of the Charge of the Light Discard
Do you like Monet’s   collars?
Why did Picasso bowl me over?
Why did Lincoln Cathedral  turn my legs to jelly?
Can God prove we exist?
Does that explain the 20th Century?
Ahomoist or Avirist?
Pick and mix your flaws
Why can MP’s steal  without  being charged?
Is the Government flat? Buy new batteries from Europe and speed Brexit
And it came to pass
And his name was called by e.manual.org
Do not harass a worm just because it can’t bite you
What is a rhyme a cousin?
QED
Please queue  Elsie dear
Quarrels ended dinner
Quebec  entered  directly
I don’t know about a Common Market but we have a common country
Leaving the EU maybe masochistic even when legal
Goodness Brie
Lord love a duck

I’d like to die with flowers in a field 1

I’d like to die while  lying in   sweet fields
Surrender to the sun and poppy seeds
Dissolve  myself and to the hot sun yield

For we are nature and we nature feel
In dandelions,  in daisies, stunned by weeds
I’d like to die while  lying in a field

What is life if mystic love’s not real?
There is much more than action and its deeds
Let us  melt as to the sun  we yield

Take this piece and let our love be sealed
For binding love and honour  is a need
I’d like to die with  flowers in a field

Let us keep in  rhythm and not congeal
Who shall   make  life dance and  who shall lead?
Let us  melt and to the hot sun yield

Is our purpose  done and shall it breed?
Let no-one  cling to love and  die of greed
I’d like to die while  lying in a field
Dissolve  to mist and to the hot sun yield

 

 

We cannot read unless we can descend

Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
That come and go on beaches , wet the  sand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The unconscious is a language dark engraved
We cannot read unless we can descend
To rhythms as natural  as   the  rippling waves

Rich and strange   so different from above
What we find is  not what we intend
The sea is always moving  as is love

What’s   in authentic nature  that should save
As colours interact, by brush  to  blend?
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves

Yet ,in a poem, what  part of us  can bathe
The mind , the heart, the soul, the writing hand
The sea is always moving  as is love

The  golden seas, the oceans can command
The ships that sail, the   whale, the hidden ends
Poetic rhythm is natural like the waves
The inner sea is  moving , tender love

 

 

 

The way the body curves with silent grace

The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
The way the body curves with silent grace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

The movement of the eyes, the lips, make calls
That  beg our bodies  for a  joint embrace
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

We don’t know what we do, we’re reconciled
Without a trick or plan, without a trace
By non-verbal means we are beguiled

We’ve counted all the points but  are they real?
Like  fractal geometry  our  love  is space
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile

Stillnesss come, eternity is poised
All know the dance embodied does not lie
The glance exchanged,  the look we share, the smile
By  the gaze and glances we are beguiled

 

We went to Tonga for a brake

My foot was in my mouth while I waited to get my test results from the doctor

I did an Eye test and I  am  greatly believed to be normal

She looked as if she wallowed  in dictionaries

Curiosity  killed the stats

Where is my youth, my charm, my air?

A  thrilling moan  is rather maddening next door

He knows the deception of the rules

We went to Tonga for a  brake

Before I die,I’d like to relax just once

My bucket list is  full of sand

Etymology

 

 

6688756_f260 (1)https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/07/quiz-etymology-word-origins-answers

 

It might be unspoken of, but which language was the word taboo borrowed into English from?

Answer: Tongan

Taboo was borrowed into English directly from Tongan in the 1770s. It is first recorded in the journals of the navigator and explorer Captain James Cook.

The candlelight of winter brings its glow

The candlelight of winter brings its glow
More joyful than the summer sun up high
When days are dense with dark,  dim paths with snow

How good it is to reach the heart of home
To  heat the oven for a lover’s pie
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

In summer time  in heather we lay  down
I did not know which kiss was yours or mine
Our days were deep with  hearts  alight with love

On Winter Hill there was no  sight  nor  sound
Except the bleats, the sheep. the lambs  new cry
The candlelight of winter brings its glow

We had a crib lit  blue with cardboard round
The figures knelt by Jesus, mystic signs
The days were dense with dark., the paths with snow

The happy years of infancy benign
When mother smiled, when father  was alive
The candlelight of winter brings its glow
When days are dense with dark ,a the paths with snow

 

Did you think purple would suit you?

I’m sorry I can’t let you in.My cat is in the washing machine but don’t tell anyone

Gosh,it  must be hard to choose glasses   when your nose is so small.Such a pity  you are myopic and your complexion  is  a sin and a shame

Did you think purple would suit you?

Khaki is hard to wear.You are very brave.Why not wear a very big pink scarf over your face/Try a Muslim shop.Or  the market

Sorry, I can’t pick the phone up.My  feet are aching

Do you wear pests in winter? A nice fox is flattering to a pale face/

We are having a new dish tonight.
Pickled hearts on a bed of mashed kale with pork dumplings.Oh,I forget you are Jewish; you are not that intelligent.
I’d invite you again but my husband is very anti-semitic.
He was born that way so his mother says.Ironically her mother was Jewish.It’s a strange world.
How did you feel in Auschwitz?
I don’t suppose they gave you the full English breakfast of egg,bacon and sausages.
Still, you have lost weight.You look like Kate Moss but older.Maybe I should  try it except they’ve knocked it down.Not to mention  the synagogues.Still we must keep smiling.We’re all 1% Jewish  but we like bacon.Will we ever be forgiven?

Is  that a love bite on your neck or is it permanent?

Is that coat real wool or is it woven by sheep?

Are tbose mittens or have your fingers fused together?

Such a pity about the buttons.They ruin the coat.Mind you mustard is not my favourite colour.Beggars can’t  be choosers,I guess.

Coats for winter
Wool   blend = 10% wool
Wool rich-         40% wool
Real Italian wool= 29% wool
A touch  of wool for comfort =1%
Very warm coat = 0% wool

 

Micro-salvation for all

Try our Salad Scream today
Try battering your toast in the morning
Do not put silt on  my egg
Do not be too free with that  red popper
French flies are a change for  an English man
Can potatoes boast in the microwave?
I like zips on everything
Cod in bitter with dried fleas is for Fridays only
In a class ,the whip on my trousers broke.The students were benighted.
Capital or corporal let the punishment fit the times
Do you weed newspapers?
Don’t wave the sun about.God will be ferociously sad

Dying  and we cannot say what for

Doubt and rumination  lose the war
Tangle our emotions like barbed wire
Dying  and we cannot say what for

Too much thinking’ opens the wrong door
Sadism to our self ignites hell fire
Doubt and rumination  lose the war

Do not let your mind become a whore
Nor label   those who’re true as screaming liars
Dying  and we cannot say what for

Tightly wound,  we   frighten and we bore
Stop before the situation’s dire
Doubt and rumination  lose the war

Do not dip your hand into the gore
Hold it only in  eternal fire
Dying  and we cannot say what for

As we struggle  we will find some cheer
Another soul whom we find very dear
Doubt and rumination   make for war
Dying  and we cannot say what for

 

I felt as rigid as a metal door

 

Fill  those blessed mugs  with water hot
Throw waste paper into that blue bin
Pick up all the rubbish you have dropped
For being so untidy is a sin

When  daddy died I put my toys away
Into boxes on the wardrobe  floor
I never played with  any toy again
I felt as rigid as a  metal door

I could not eat my dinner,I grew thin
I never spoke for woe had struck my throat
I read  the  tea leaves left inside  my mug
I  never wore my woollen winter coat

Now I am untidy and I write
I did not get  so silent  out of spite

Eyes a-crinkle ,  green as sun washed leaves

I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I didn’t know  how soon you had to leave
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design

I tell my love in words,  which is no crime.
I didn’t show you all you might receive
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

If I had  bought you  bottles of best wine
Would you have stayed and  kept me from  this grief?
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I know you were perceptive and read signs
Eyes a-crinkle   green as sun washed  leaves
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times

I’d  hold your  mind ;I’d weave  your thoughts to rhymes
Until  the   greatest love poem  was  conceived
I’d   draw upon your lips my best design.

I’d write  you letters ,much love I would leave
With my mind and body I perceive.
I wish that I had kissed you ten more times
I’d   draw upon your lips our own design

Aldeburgh cats

In Aldeburgh we ordered  cats of stone
I ‘ve lost the first, so one sits all alone.
By the clock upon the mantelpiece
There it is a conduit for my grief

Sitting here, I see the other one
By the fire, I’m happy it’ s not gone
I’ll wash it with a cloth and put it back
The two will guard my home, bring me good luck

I remember driving through green lanes
To Saffron Walden, to the potter’s home
I remember love and all it brings
Flowered fields of butterflies and song

But, love  deprived, I feel  such intense woe
That I to the wild poppies  shall soon go.